Know RA by EastWest - Really Well

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0:00 Intro
1:00 Interface
2:53 Africa Bells
4:11 Africa Drums
7:38 Africa Pitch Percussion
9:07 African Plucked
9:57 African Shakers
11:35 Americas Percussion
12:42 Americas Plucked
15:09 Americas Wind
16:20 Europe Bowed
18:26 Europe Percussion
18:58 Europe Wind
22:57 Far East Bowed
23:35 Far East Percussion
28:02 Far East Plucked
29:48 Far East Wind
31:54 India Bowed
34:09 India Percussion
35:30 India Plucked
36:35 India Wind
37:16 Mid East Bowed
39:19 Mid East Percussion
40:13 Mid East Plucked
41:23 Mid East Wind
43:52 Verdict
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[@5argon]

It is so nice that you put the picture of each instrument in the clip! Hard to relate to these exotic instruments when they are just obscure names. (The digital manual of Ra + Gypsy + Silk are comprehensive, but I wish those information show up in the UI without having to cross referencing it.)

[@SecondTierSound]

Agreed

[@Azurethewolf168]

I would’ve liked what ethno world did, and have pictures along side a name of the instrument to get us an understanding of what it is.

[@M4T]

I am a big fan of that library. In my opinion, underrated ... Thanks for this detailed review.

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you Stephane!😊

[@BgTrll234]

38:24 Buzzinga!!

[@aaronlietz]

Great video! Thank you so much!

[@yaoguangtang1759]

So wonderful video!

[@LukaGroulx]

Incredibly useful walkthrough with inspiring demos! Thank you for this!

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you too!

[@etherealtalion]

Thank you for this video!!

[@SecondTierSound]

You're welcome!

[@dougsomers3429]

A very useful reminder of all the gems in this library. It’s been a long time since I auditioned Ra and this has brought a lot of patches back to mind. Excellent production - thanks Sam!

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you! That was the idea. 😊

[@vitaliano1978]

Excellent man! Keep up a good work 👍

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you!🙂

[@erekhronmusic]

I am so happy I found your channel, I just started my journey with full on composing besides Electronic music after 15 years, so these are amazingly helpful.

[@SecondTierSound]

Oh, great to hear that. I wish you all the best with that! 😊

[@Roland_Geyer]

Thank you very much, through this structured and detailed introduction I can now use the instruments specifically in my compositions 👍👍👍

[@SecondTierSound]

You're welcome

[@modernman4269]

GREAT VIDEO SAM I HAVE THIS LIBRARY YEARS NEED TO REVISIT

[@SecondTierSound]

IT IS STILL PRETTY GOOD 😊

[@obstinator5645]

Awesome, love these EWQL tutorials Sam.

[@SecondTierSound]

Cheers!

[@oskararnarson]

Very useful. Great overview. Thank you.

[@SecondTierSound]

Cheers!

[@maxtofone]

Thanks for this RA exploration video... I have been using RA for many years and although it is quite a dated library, there are some nice gems inside to be found for sure... My favorite EW ethnic library by far Silk. Kind regards and many blessings, MaxT

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you. I agree. Silk is a video coming later.

[@dodzidenudzakuma]

Man, I love your channel and the in depth topics you dive into. I'm Ghanian and the pronunciation of Ewe is (A waay). Just for your information. Keep up the awesome tutorials! You're helping me get the most out of my EastWest and SWAM vsts.

[@SecondTierSound]

Nice to meet you! Thank you so much for your kind words.

[@BF-up5xw]

What a fantastically useful video! I really wish they hadn’t hidden the keyswitch patches, but at least I now have another way of finding them. RA is very useful and, while lacking in dynamic range, it has excellent quality sounds for when you want an instant studio-produced quality version of these instruments.

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you. Yes, I agree very much.

[@UltimateMoralizer]

This was a very underrated library. I still use it from time to time.

[@SecondTierSound]

Absolutely essential to certain productions

[@ReidRosefelt]

Hi Sam! Really great video, and one that is very needed. People tend to dismiss the EastWest world libraries because they are "old," but I still feel that Silk is still one of the best world libraries out there, despite all the Asian ones released since. And now you prove that Ra has a lot to offer too. And it's a real value for the price.

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you Reid. I've been enjoying your videos lately. Silk is in the works, so that one will show up eventually. Cheers!

[@ReidRosefelt]

@@SecondTierSound That's great news. I look forward to seeing that one. And thanks for watching my videos! 😀

[@nathan_hades]

Excellent video! A look into the manual is worthwhile, because many instruments are described there. Among other things, you can learn about the origin, construction and playing techniques. There are also some photos. About some questions you asked in the video: The America category is actually called America & Australia, which explains the didjeridoo. And you were right about highland pipes being Scottish and uillean pipes being Irish.

[@Azurethewolf168]

I wonder why they didn’t make a Australian section

[@bluebellbeatnik4945]

Wow that oud is perfect!

[@SecondTierSound]

Its nice!

[@Azurethewolf168]

4:52 it’s not, but they likely are very similar due to sharing basically the same region of use. The fromtomfrom is from the Bono tribe who live in the western half of Ghana, while the atsimevu is from the Ewe tribe, which are from the eastern half. It makes sense these drums would sound and look similar, both tribes border each other!

[@LaurinaHawks]

RA is a fantastic Library, thank you for presenting it to your community. Combined with Gypsy and Silk as well as some femaIe voice libraries I produced amazing soundscapes.

[@SecondTierSound]

Yes, it's not bad at all. I aim to review the other ethnical Eastwest libraries soon.

[@LaurinaHawks]

@@SecondTierSound That would be great! :-)

[@collectitbydiyversity2442]

Great video, thanks for sharing. In your video named The best tip about Opus Orchestrator, you showed how to drag and drop the recorded events from the opus orchestrator into the DAW so that it created separate tracks of each sound/instrument. Is it possible to do it in RA, Silk or any of the other EastWest products?

[@SecondTierSound]

I'm afraid that is an opus orchestrator feature only. Cheers!

[@adsertheblade]

Thanks for the great review. In case I missed it, there was no bouzouki was there?

[@SecondTierSound]

No, I don't think so

[@matthewsaul3533]

Thanks for this video. Very helpful demo. I personally wish that they would allow you to buy individual instruments because I really just want the drums from this, and I also think the stringed/wind etc instruments don't sound nearly as good as the drums in terms of how realistic they sound. I still haven't found a demo of this library that demos the sounds without the reverb on, which I'd like to hear. I'm hoping there's an option for very very dry sounds. So far in my search for these kinds of drums, this library and the VIR2 World Impact: Global Percussion libraries seem to be the best. Though still not quite complete, and both are quite old and I imagine something much more deeply sampled could be done now. I'll probably buy them both but I'll keep an eye out for others if I can find any others.

[@SecondTierSound]

All sounds of EW are pretty dry actually and sound nice even when dry. If you just want the drums i would highly recommend the stormdrum 3. I think it has most of the percussion (if not all), and then some, and it is very well and deeply sampled. The subscription let's you download just what you need but then you don't own any libraries of course, but it's a way to test the sounds. Otherwise UVIs world suit 2 has a massive library of world instruments and percussion so you might want to look there.

[@matthewsaul3533]

@@SecondTierSound Wow! Thank you! Stormdrum 3 sounds incredible! I think I'll get that one to start out with. It's selection is massive and the quality is wonderful. It actually doesn't have the same percussion instruments as RA but it has such a large collection. Though I think I will get RA at some point, most likely next year if they have the same sale then as they have now, (I won't end up choosing subscription as I don't like the rest of their libraries enough and I don't like paying rent on musical tools personally lol) even only for the drums, because some of the sounds it does have are incredible. The log drums on RA sound a lot better than the log drums on Stormdrum 3. On ST3 the log drum on has one pitch and the recording isn't quite as detailed sounding. Whereas RA has many pitches for the log drum and the recording has really nice texture. Anyway, thank you so much. While I like the sounds on RA a lot, the enormity of the selection in ST3 gives me much more to work with for what I'm using it for. Thank you!

[@CatWAVE-qq1gs]

Holy FUCK!!!! I NEED the dobro slide guitar... I love blues and rock so I'm downloading this library just for that.. wow :)

[@SecondTierSound]

It's pretty nice

[@Azurethewolf168]

Could you maybe do this for other EW libraries like Stormdrum 2, Silk or Gypsy? It would really benefit a lot of people.

[@SecondTierSound]

At the moment there is no time, but you never know

[@inkyinkfrfr]

14:14 swampcore

[@henrique_zsp]

I wasnt able to make the browsing tip you mentioned at 1:56 My browser has completely different subcategories. And instead of "Libraries and Database" below the description panel I have "Installed and Search". Is it different versions? I couldn't find an option to change in the settings.

[@SecondTierSound]

could be that opus and play behanves differently

[@eurisgamer5796]

11:28 33:55 39:02 Wow, what great sounds! I sure hope they get added to a certain singing game!

[@Azurethewolf168]

First off, these are not “soundfonts”, these are presets or patches. Soundfont denotes a sf2 version of a game’s instruments, it’s a specific type not a generic term for a sample or preset. Idk why the MSM community uses that term when it’s so misleading. Secondly, yes.

[@eurisgamer5796]

@@Azurethewolf168 sorry I just keep thinking a vst and a soundfont are the same thing

[@Azurethewolf168]

@@eurisgamer5796 no man they’re totally different, and VST is also misleading, since it denotes a specific plugin format. But I do know that soundfont is kind of used as a generic term in some other communities too, but if we’re getting technical, it’s not very useful to use

[@inkyinkfrfr]

16:12 flootfly on nexus

[@bluebellbeatnik4945]

Can you explain the microtuning? Am I able to detune each note individually?

[@SecondTierSound]

Missed this comment! Sorry, youtube doesn't always let me know. Well, you tune the whole instrument, in steps or cents, OR you tune the instrument according to a specific scale. I don't think you can do your own as far as I know, but EastWest gives you plenty of options that should cover most bases. It makes some instrument sound a little more realistic.

[@bluebellbeatnik4945]

the reverb on the instruments - is that an effect or natural reverb because of the way it was recorded?

[@SecondTierSound]

Most sounds in eastwest are quite dry, so you can add your own reverbs if needed

[@bluebellbeatnik4945]

Because of the price, this actually makes me want to find the sounds elsewhere and try to make them sound as natural as possible.

[@SecondTierSound]

I would try the subscription

[@music_creator_capable]

Hello ^^

[@SecondTierSound]

Hi!

[@FLREGUY]

Middle East Fiddle is called ( RABABA )

[@SecondTierSound]

Thank you!

[@Azurethewolf168]

Actually, it’s a Rebab.

[@azamat19]

honestly, this is the worst sample library for middle eastern instruments. excepts of the duduk nothing is really useable. to clear things up: the Kandahar Doumbek (Tombak is a Persian word for drum) is called zir baghali in persian language. Its a Tombak from Afghanistan, sounds a little bit different to the one from Iran. Afghan Instruments which didnt have an origin in India, belong to the persian classical music instruments, like Robab, Tar, Dotar, Santour, Tombak, Daf and Dayreh. Thats why they are listed under middle eastern, as Persia (Afghanistan was a part of Persia) is the origin of those Instruments.

[@Azurethewolf168]

Are you kidding me? These sound great!

[@Azurethewolf168]

That’s an overly complicated explanation, they should’ve just called it a Persian dumbek